About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

World Bank: Palestine loses $ 285 million a year due to agreement with Israel

The Palestinian Authority is losing up to $285 million a year under
its current economic arrangements with Israel, the World Bank said on
Monday.
According to Ma’an News Agency, the global financial institution
announced the finding a day before it presents its full report to the Ad
Hoc Liaison committee, which decides on development assistance to the
Palestinian territories, in Brussels. It found that the current revenue
sharing arrangements as outlined by the Paris Protocol — through which
Israel collects VAT, import taxes and other revenues on behalf of the PA
— “have not been systematically implemented.”
The World Bank estimated that “tax leakages on bilateral trade with
Israel and undervaluation of Palestinian imports from third countries”
amounted to up to $285 million in revenues lost annually by the PA.It added that the amount could be higher, as it was unable to make
estimates for Area C — the 61 percent of the occupied West Bank under
full Israeli control — “due to data constraints.”“These revenues can significantly ease the Authority’s fiscal
stress,” the World Bank said, urging Israel and the PA to revive the
Israeli-Palestinian Joint Economic Committee, which was originally set
up to monitor the implementation of the Paris Protocol.
The global institution also noted that Israel was currently holding
onto $669 million owed to the PA, including pension contributions from
Palestinians working in Israel and their employers that were “expected
to be transferred to a dedicated fund that is yet to be established by
the PA.” The amount also includes deductions from these workers’
salaries that Israel is supposed to transfer to cover their health
services and social benefits.
Rights groups have long condemned Israel for withholding these funds, leaving Palestinian workers with no benefits whatsoever.
Israel recently agreed to transfer $128 million “to offset some of
the losses accumulated over the years,” the World Bank said, commending
this as the “first step in an enhanced dialogue.”
The report to the Ad Hoc Liaison committee will also note the poor
state of the Palestinian economy and the need “to stimulate growth in an
economy that is not growing enough to raise living standards or reduce
high unemployment.”
The World Bank said the West Bank’s economy was stronger through 2015
than in 2014, but still “barely enough to keep up with population
growth,” while in Gaza, the economy was not expected to recover its
pre-war levels until at least 2018. It said that slow aid was continuing
“to hamper Gaza’s recovery,” as only 40 percent of foreign aid pledged
in the aftermath of 2014’s devastating war with Israel had so far been
disbursed.
“One can understand the exhausted population when 20 months after the
war, only 9 percent of totally damaged houses ​and 45 percent of
partially damaged houses have been repaired,” said Steen Jorgensen, the
World Bank’s country director.
“For these people in Gaza, there is no escape.”